Even Clinton loyalists aren’t quite buying the bad-Bernie routine. “There’s something very cute about Bernie,” said Clinton stalwart Bonnie Campbell, a former state attorney general. “He can get this mischievous look on his face ... you just want to smooth his hair out and calm down his hands.”

***

But it’s the clarity of his message, not appearance, that’s brought him from 50 points down in national polls to par in Iowa. He’d never spent much time in the state before this campaign, but he’s turned out to be heartland natural—Brooklyn Socialist plus rural Vermont somehow adds up to Iowa Democrat in 2016.

Last week, at Pleasantville High School, about 45 minutes outside Des Moines, Sanders turned his stump speech into an interactive, Dead Poets’ Society-style, government class.

Another advantage for Sanders—one people who haven’t visited his events don’t see—is his freedom: He doesn’t inhabit the same security bubble that traps Clinton behind a wall of security and staff.

Unlike Clinton events, there was no security check-in, and no long, fidgety wait with Katy Perry and Jennifer Lopez hits blasting over the sound system, no organizers killing time for her arrival on the mic waiting for the candidate to arrive. He is obsessed with punctuality and arrived on time to deliver his message on a bare stage. Standing in front of an auditorium filled with about 500 people, he roamed freely across the stage in his ill-fitting suit, like he was delivering a Bernie TED talk—a shtick he perfected back in Vermont.

“Income and wealth inequality,” he launched in, “you all know what I mean by that? If I am a high school graduate, and I’m going out looking for work, tell me about that experience. Anyone want to talk to me about that?”

Next, he pressed the students to explain how politicians fund their campaigns. “They get the money by succumbing to corporate interests,” volunteered a student named Max.

“I agree with Max!” Sanders thundered—and the crowd roared.

Sanders, whose unkempt appearance belies iron discipline as a politician, has gained strength because of his strict adherence to his core message that—like his baggy suits—don’t need to be tailored to fit a new crowd. But in his events on Monday, he focused on issues students care about—tuition-free college, raising the minimum wage, equal pay, immigration, guns and weed.

“What should we do with marijuana? Give me some ideas.” The crowd giggled. “Make it legal!” someone yelled out, as he smiled. The exchange wasn’t especially memorable—but it underscored the easy, unspoken bond a politician who’s really connecting has with his supporters.

Afterward, there was no rope line, no crush for selfies. He simply left with his wife Jane, escorted by a few staffers, and forgot to even tell the crowd to get out and caucus on February 1.

That’s not so good—because Sanders needs big caucus turnout to win. Nobody knows how many people will show up (the weather plays a major role, hence the bulk snow shovel buy) but in a dozen interviews with Democratic leaders in the state the estimate were a good-but-not-crazy 140,000 to 160,000. Those aren’t Obama numbers, but like Obama, Sanders is expanding the electorate here, particularly among the 18- to 35-year-olds.

Speaking to reporters last week in Pleasantville, Sanders conceded that pulling off an Obama-style victory is a long shot. “I don't know that we can do as well as Barack Obama did in 2008,” he said.

When it comes to organization, Sanders’ campaign has been late to the party and flying by the seat of the candidate’s wrinkled pants. State coordinator Pete D’Alessandro—former Iowa Gov. Chet Culver’s political director—was Sanders’ first hire here, and joined the campaign on May 29, but things got off to a slow start. That late May weekend, Sanders was planning to barnstorm the state with three large rallies—he had no one to help him hand out caucus cards or gather people’s information for follow up, the exercise was essentially useless from an organizing standpoint.

“He was coming in with nothing but volunteers,” D’Alessandro recalled.

Now, with plenty of money (Sanders raised an eye-popping $33 million in the fourth quarter of 2015) to hire a real team, D’Alessandro has quickly built up the organization to 101 paid staffers in Iowa. And, despite Clinton’s strength with blacks and Hispanics nationally, Sanders—from snow-white Vermont—is hoping to attract the small but significant pool of young minority voters. In 2007, the League of United Latin American Citizens—a local advocacy group—identified 23,000 Latino voters in Iowa. In the intervening nine years, according to the group’s national vice president, Joe Henry, that number has swelled to 49,000. “A lot of young people seem to be going with Bernie,” Henry said. “If you’re looking at a campaign that works on regular caucus goers, clearly it’s Hillary Clinton, who is doing the traditional approach. Who is best organized, in terms of an Obama-style grass-roots campaign? It’s Bernie Sanders.”

Moreover, Sanders is intent on out-hustling Clinton, who has abandoned the five-event-a-day approach she fruitlessly adopted eight years ago. Last Monday, he held three events across the state ahead of a Democratic forum here, while Clinton held just one. In December, Sanders held 22 events in the state, compared to Clinton’s 10. And this month, so far, Clinton has held 16 events compared to 19 for Sanders, according to the Des Moines Register’s candidate tracker.

***

It’s a long-forgotten fact, but Clinton finally did find her voice late in the 2008 Iowa campaign and carried her working-class-warrior message to New Hampshire where she scored a major upset. There are hints of a reprise. Clinton events tend to draw a higher percentage of undecided voters than Sanders rallies, her staff says, but in Waterloo, roughly half the attendees cheerfully filled out commitment cards after the event and many offered to volunteer. “I want to see a woman president in my lifetime,” said 85-year-old Marlee Ryan, a retired board of education employee. “If we had a woman president, trust me, we wouldn’t have a lot of this bullcrap.”

And day after that muddled performance, Clinton—speaking at Iowa State University in Ames—was in sharper mid-’08 form, lashing Sanders for voting against a bill that would have allowed victims of gun violence to sue manufacturers for damages. (He reversed his position a couple of days later.)

Clinton is applauded at a rally this week in Waterloo. Clinton's compelling campaign message in 2008 developed just in time to win the New Hampshire primary. Campaign observers say there are hints of a reprise in Iowa. | AP Photo

The audience of around 400—which had braved cloudless 1-degree temperatures and a biting westerly wind—seemed genuinely energized and rushed out to the lobby to sign their pledge cards. But this was a Clinton rally, and this was Iowa, so the sunny day wasn’t entirely without shadow.

To ensure that college students were represented among Clinton’s AARP faithful, the organizers offered last-minute tickets to three classes in the school—including a batch to Sarah Vance’s ballroom dancing class. When the instructor announced the opportunity, one kid booed and shouted “I don’t like Hillary!” and all but 10 of 30 students wandered off.

“It was rude and stupid,” the 22-year-old senior from Davenport said. “I mean why would anyone skip the chance to see someone who might be the first woman president of the United States?”

But would she caucus for Clinton? “I’m definitely thinking about it!” she said.